The present invention relates to an improved method and apparatus for attaching leader material to a length of tape, in general, and to simultaneously attaching cassette-spool attached leader material to lengths of tape and loading the said leadered tape lengths into a plurality of cassettes, in particular.
In order to effectively compete in the marketplace, tape handling cassettes must be loaded with specific lengths of tape at relatively high rates of speed by automatic cassette loading equipment requiring minimum machine operator involvement with the tape loading process. An automatic preleadered cassette tape loading machine that operates in such a manner, designated the VL-600 Video Loader, is presently available from the Otari Electric Co., Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan. Cassette loading equipment of this type automatically place short lengths of leader material on both ends of the tape and loads a specific length of tape with leader material attached thereto into a tape-handling cassette.
One fairly common technique employed to increase the rate at which tape handling cassettes are loaded with leadered tape by automatic cassette loading equipment is to employ empty tape cassettes having the proper length of leader material wound onto a pair of tape-handling spools rotatably mounted within the tape cassette housing. In such cassettes, approximately one-half of the leader material is wound on each of the cassette spools that are otherwise empty of tape or other tape related materials. The technique of using preleadered cassettes is a technique that is employed in the above-mentioned Otari tape-loading machine.
Cassette loading equipment such as the Otari machine mentioned above automatically attaches leader material, already wound on a pair of spools within a cassette, to a measured length of magnetic tape by means of a small piece of adhesive tape of a predetermined size automatically die cut from a roll of such tape at the appropriate time in the cassette-loading cycle. The leader material is attached by mechanically raising the center portion of the leader out of its cassette so that the leader may be severed into two separate lengths with each severed length having an end attached to a different rotatably mounted cassette spool. The free end of one severed leader length is laterally moved into linear alignment and butting engagement with a free end of a large reel of magnetic tape and then a small piece of die cut adhesively coated splice-tape is aligned with and is subsequently employed to adhesively attach a severed leader length to said free magnetic tape end. After a measured length of tape together with its adhesively attached leader has been wound onto one cassette spool, it is severed from the large reel of tape and then adhesively attached to the remaining spool-attached severed leader length in the same manner that the first-mentioned length of leader material was attached to the opposite end of the tape previously wound onto the other cassette spool.
Disadvantages associated with Otari-type automatic cassette loading equipment include the necessity of maintaining relatively large inventories of large diameter reels of narrow width magnetic tape that must be manually loaded into said equipment and the difficulty of avoiding excessive linear misalignment between tape and leader and between the adhesive tape and the leader and/or the magnetic tape. Excessive misalignment of the tape or tapes can, for example, produce friction loading between the tape and tape-reel that may prevent the tape drive from moving the tape past the magnetic head of a tape recorder at the required tape speed.
A primary object of the present invention, therefore, is to provide an improved method and apparatus for simultaneously loading leadered tape into a plurality of tape cassettes.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved method and apparatus for minimizing the inventory of tape that must be maintained in a tape cassette loading operation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved method and apparatus for attaching leader material to a length of tape, the combination of which is to be placed within a tape cassette.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for minimizing the degree of linear misalignment between a length of tape and the leader material attached thereto.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an improved method and apparatus for increasing the rate at which leadered tape can be loaded into a tape cassette.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment thereof, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.